Manga
On Earth, a popular form of entertainment media are Japanese comics called Manga. Unlike many other aspects of Earth culture like fashion, television and movies, manga did not have a very large presence off planet outside of some systems in Earth's galactic neighborhood. However, after the fall of the Horde and Earth's inclusion into the greater universal community, manga has exploded in popularity across the stars. John likes action/adventure manga and has a soft spot for romance manga. Nearly everything he reads has a substantial ecchi component. Upon first meeting, he and June bonded over their love of Pirate Treasure, and are both fans of manga like Ninja Savior, Knight’s Tale, Iron Wizard and Crystal Ball. However, June prefers horror manga over the romance manga John likes. Mirroring his collection of hentai comics, June loves yaoi and even a lot of the more benign manga she reads has a BL component to it. Pirate Treasure: The most popular manga of all time. Pirate Treasure tells the tale of a young boy called Bart J. Ward with the power of breath who sets out to sea to become Pirate God. Ninja Savior: A village outcast misfit named Hayate decides he wants to earn everyone’s respect by becoming a ninja grand master. He apprentices himself to an old man with more to him than meets the eye who thinks the boy might just be the prophesied Ninja Savior. I Wish I Had Friends: A girl without friends ends up meeting a boy she played with as a child. This boy, because of his rough demeanor is assumed to be a delinquent and is avoided by the other students. Hoping to rekindle their past friendship, the girl drags him into a club she makes with no defined purpose. As more friendless misfits join the club, the girl realizes to her horror that they all are attracted to the boy. Girl Next Door: Naota has an easy going high school life except that he pines for his crush, Midori. One day, an eccentric new girl called Sachiko moves in next door throwing his entire world upside down. Crystal Ball: A classic manga tells the story of a powerful martial artist named Ima Jin who gets swept up in the pursuit of a wish granting Crystal Ball, fighting many powerful enemies along the way. The boy is later revealed to be a demon who had been sent to the mortal world as a child, and gradually he must fight other demons, preventing them from getting the Crystal Ball and sowing evil with it. Knight’s Tale: An outlaw Order of Knights with fantastic powers end up saving the world. Iron Wizard: In a botched attempt to bring back the woman he loved, a wizard released demons into the world, destroyed his brother’s body and was left with a partially metal body himself. Aided by his brother who now follows him around as a spirit, he now attempts to undo the damage he did and restore his and his brother’s bodies. Approach of Monsters: Giant beasts from the sea appear on land to attack and devour humans. Humanity has sealed itself inside vast walled communities and are protected by soldiers equipped with special weapons. Regardless, the body count is extremely high and no character is safe. Voyage of the Damned: An experimental hyperdrive sends a space ship to Hell. The ship becomes possessed and demonic monsters from the shadows grab the crew and rip them to shreds while they try desperately to get back to their home dimension. Vampire Butler: An impossibly beautiful man is butler to a demon prince hiding in the human world. The butler protects the prince and draws the romantic attentions of pretty much everyone who meets him. However, he only has eyes for his prince. White: A manga about a yellow haired boy named Hiro with the power to see ghosts. After a near death experience, he is recruited by the Spirit World to help them defeat and capture rogue Poltergeists. Eventually a misunderstanding causes Hiro's Spirit World overseer to be arrested and sentenced to obliteration, causing him to invade Spirit World with a group of his friends where they uncover a conspiracy to destroy the balance between the living and the dead. After this highly popular arc, the series suffered a dramatic drop in quality with declining art and a meandering, nonsensical plot. Coco’s Crazy Capers: A classic manga which has long since finished but has enjoyed something of a resurgence in popularity thanks to a new anime. The story follows several generations of a family, each bearing the nickname Coco as they battle a constantly returning demon called ZEO who was once the first Coco's childhood friend. In the first two arcs, the characters use a power called Holy Light to fight demons, but at the end of the second arc the protagonist Cody Coburn discovers a method to channel his Holy Light into a new power called a Lamp. After this each character learns how to develop a Lamp, which gives them access to a plethora of unique abilities. Trivia - June would note upon learning how Aura worked and seeing the Magnificent 7 in action, that it's kinda surprising how closely Crystal Ball got to displaying how powers worked. - Before leaving Earth, John was a big fan of White and found the first post-Spirit World arc engaging. When he returned, he was dismayed to see how far the series had fallen and was glad it was cancelled. In conversations with June, he generally refuses to consider anything post-Spirt World as having happened. - In Coco's Crazy Capers, the first Coco is a young gentleman named Sir Conan Conrad whose close friend Zachary Edward Osborn betrays him, using a mysterious jewel to transform himself into a demon in a bid for immortality. Taking the name ZEO, he uses his new power to build an army of monsters. He is thwarted from his plans for world domination by Coco, who masters a mysterious power called the Holy Light to fight him. After Coco destroys his body, ZEO attempts to possess Coco but before he can succeed the two are locked in a magical puzzle box. The second arc features Sir Conan's grandson, Cody Conrad who with the help of his grandfather's sidekick fights a trio of evil wizards who created the stone which ZEO used to become a demon. The third and most popular arc features Cody's grandson, the half Japanese Kotaro Kojima as they fight a returned ZEO who emerges in control of Sir Conan's body. Successive arcs include one about Kotaro's estranged daughter Courtney Coburn, Cody's illegitimate son Connor Colton, and another including a son sired by ZEO while in Sir Conan's body named Chase Ogden Christopher O'Brien. - John was a big fan of Kotaro's arc in Coco's Crazy Capers and once dressed as him as a disguise. June teased him, saying John wasn't stoic enough to be a convincing Kotaro and is actually closer to Cody, though he's not really clever enough to pull off that character either.